


Sun and Moon, Five and Two

by bansheenanigans



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Clever Witch Sisters, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Multiple Wardens, some canon-bending shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 21:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11952942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bansheenanigans/pseuds/bansheenanigans
Summary: Amell and Surana built a family in the Circle, and the Blight forces them to build anew as they are torn apart and thrown back together again.





	Sun and Moon, Five and Two

Corrine Amell is ten years old when she meets Saski Surana, the 8 year-old elven girl dragged into Kinloch Hold with a missing front tooth and shoes with soles worn to nothing but slips of fabric thin as a breath. A girl from the Denerim Alienage, she hears the enchanters whisper. Froze the door closed on her house when a merchant tried to ‘call' on her older sister. It had taken 3 Templars to drag the little girl out, and that embarrassed them terribly. That likely explained the black eye the girl sported as she was handed off. It also explained the deep bruise on Ser Tomlin’s jaw. 

Corrine decided she liked this girl within minutes, through rebellious zeal and a satisfied distaste for Ser Tomlin, and that decision was only made more certain when Surana had been released into the apprentice’s wing of the tower, freshly bathed and stuffed into their shapeless children’s robes. The girl was thin as a branch of sun-bleached wood, but with eyes like gleaming steel and thick, unruly black hair that seemed to be perpetually tangled. Standing in opposition to Corrine’s own brown flesh and golden hair and eyes, Saski Surana was like a being built purely from the night, where Corrine was the sun and earth. Corrine was two years older, but Saski was decades quicker and more clever, an ancient unquiet shoved into a little girl’s bones. The younger girl didn’t speak for months after joining the tower, which only earned her distrust and dislike from the other children, who quietly began to call the elf a number of nicknames, ranging from cruel to fearful. It seemed as if Surana didn’t even pay them mind, only stared quietly at the door until ushered away. She didn't even flinch when a particularly nasty older boy said she was destined to be made Tranquil, though whether this was from strength or of not knowing what Tranquil were, nobody could know. 

It was during one of these longing glances at the tower door that Corrine first spoke to Saski Surana. She stood watching for a few moments, arms full of books and notes fetched for an older apprentice in exchange for a favor, before quietly clearing her throat.

“I'm not sure what kind of magic you believe glaring will do, but that door is probably immune to it anyway. The Templars have barred it six ways to Sunday with anti-magic apparatus." She tries not to stumble over her words, to keep them cool and confidently light, but despite her weeks of practice, they still come out with a squeak.  
Surana jumps at that squeak, though, and suddenly two sharply bright eyes are staring into her own, wet with unshed tears. 

"I want to go home. I miss my sisters. I didn't even get to say goodbye." The young elf hiccups quietly, balling bony fists into the skirt of her robe. Corrine tries to smile, to project the calm and kind air that her mother had raised her to embody, but it has been too long since her mother's lessons, and the corners of her mouth wobble with sympathy. 

"I miss my siblings too. I had a bunch of brothers, and sisters. I was six, and I didn’t get to say bye either." She finally says, and holds out a small brown hand, hefting the books to her hip. "Do you want to meet my new brothers, though? They're big weirdos, but Anders has escaped a lot, and he and Karl have good stories, and they sneak extra treats from meals. And Jowan gives good hugs."

Sword-bright eyes stare at Corrine with watery lashes as if she's suddenly grown another head, but a pale hand takes hers after a few moments. 

"It's really easy to feel lonely here, but sometimes you get lucky, and you find people that aren't totally unbearable." She smiles brighter this time, with all the confidence of a sun, and gives Saski's hand a squeeze. 

"Isn't Jowan the boy that everyone picks on when they aren't calling me a knife ear?" Saski frowns, but doesn't take her hand back.

"The one and only. Jowan gives good hugs, but sometimes you have to hit someone mean first. Is that okay with you, Surana?" 

Surana considers for a moment, childish mouth worrying over the concept, and then smiles with sharp teeth. 

"That's okay with me, uh..." dark eyebrows knit over wide eyes. 

"Corrine. Corrine Amell." 

"That's okay with me, Corrine." The elf grins, and Corrine beams back, as they hurry off to find Jowan.  
\------------------

Anders and Karl take to Saski with a sigh and grumble, but the older boys find the little girl a quick study and a quicker tongue, and her hunger for stories of Anders' exploits is only equal to her hunger for Karl's pilfered cinnamon and clove buns. Jowan takes longer, unsure as he ever is, but with Corrine's prodding they all accept Saski as a little sister in good time. Four stolen siblings become five, and there are a few spare years of peaceful company before the older boys are moved further into mages quarters, visiting as much as they can but still so seemingly far away. 

It is not long after that that Karl is sent away to Kirkwall, and Anders is devastated. Between escape attempts he spends his time on the stairwells, borrowed little sisters promising always that someday, someday, they'd all be free from the tower, and they'd find Karl and be a family. Five is now four. 

Corrine and Saski study with a fervor, a personal contest of who could possibly be worthy of being Harrowed first, who could keep an eye on Anders first, begin planning an escape for all of them. Jowan tries to keep up with them, of course, but the sisters are too quick, too bright, moon and sun made flesh and driven by mad desire to mend their small family. To escape and live. He falls to the wayside. There are whispers, always whispers. 

Corrine is Harrowed first, in the dead of the night, and perhaps it is only fair that she is, being two years older. But waking in her bed after the ordeal still brings nothing but an ache in her chest, as her own golden eyes open to meet two sets staring down at her, steel and stars, brown as the earth. Jowan is loudest, exclaiming about her passing, about the rumors already circulating, his own worries. 

Saski is quiet, pale hand placed gently in brown, shoulder that is no longer bony but soft and gentle leaning against Corrine's own. Their hug is tight and terrible, neither quite wanting to let go, but Corrine pulls on mage's robes and hands her old apprentice garb to Saski with a smile. 

"Blue was always more your color than mine anyway." She fronts, twirling the shiny new yellow skirt of her mage robe in front of the vanity mirror. It is warped and old, but clean as the moonlight, because Saski would suffer no different. Corrine's reflection is more dancing light than it is girl.

"I'm going to have to beat your record, you know. It's unavoidable." Saski smiles, though it doesn't reach her eyes. "Fastest harrowing in tower history? Feh. Everybody knows that while you're flashy, I'm quicker."

"Quicker than silver and swords, my baby sister. I have no doubt that you'll be quicker than a mouse, an arrow, or quicksilver itself." Corrine winks, and worries her upper lip between her teeth. "I'll try to convince them that you and Jowan are ready. You are ready, of course. Age doesn't mean a thing in this case. You’re ready. I know you are."

"I'll be fine, big sister. You should hurry along now, though. I expect that First Enchanter Irving is dying to laud his star pupil, and Jowan is set to panic for at least another hour. You know how he is." Saski pulls Corrine in for one last hug, the bulk of the old robe between them like a manifested reminder of the decade-and-more that had seen them inseparable. 

"I don't think I get to stay the favorite after the fire barrel incident, but we'll see. Say goodbye to Jowan for me? I can't bear his goodbyes. Too much crying." She laughs, but it's hoarse with held back tears of her own, and Saski casts her a knowing look in the mirror. 

"Of course, sister." She says solemnly. It is a good enough goodbye. They won't be separated for long, after all. They would be back together soon enough.  
\------------------  
Of course, Jowan complicates that plan immediately. Their brothers always did, leaving sisters with the weight. 

And then Corrine is gone from the Tower, and so is Jowan, and Saski Surana is left. Anders is in solitary confinement, still, and does not know that Corrine and Jowan have gone until Saski sneaks into his room in the night and whispers the secret to him. Whispers that the Grey Wardens have their sister now, and blood magic their brother. She does not know who is more destroyed at this change, but she must leave him and Mr. Wiggums before the next patrol, and she does not see him again.  
Saski is harrowed soon after, at Enchanter Irving's urging, and none oppose the idea, at least not vocally. They look at her with suspicious, appraising eyes, seeing Jowan in her shadow, Corrine in her gestures, Anders in the set of her jaw, Karl in the kind way she hugs each of the younger apprentices goodbye. 

It is, in fact, a new record that she passes, but only by a few spare seconds. Saski enters the mage quarters in brilliant gold, her only request in her entire life in that tower, and spends her first night there crying, refusing company. 

Wynne and the few mages spared for the battle returns a few days later from Ostagar, horrors dancing softly behind the older mage’s eyes, and Saski begs, pleads, for news of her sister. 

Wynne’s voice creaks like the desert as she describes the battle, the betrayal, the loss of what happened there. The king is dead. The Warden Duncan is dead. No one has seen Corrine Amell or the other Warden, Alistair. No one has seen the Grey Wardens at all, and all claim that they betrayed Fereldan. The Blight is upon them.  
Saski returns to Anders cell to share their mourning, and he’s gone. He is free, and he left her behind, as they all did.

Saski Surana is all alone in the world for the first time since she was eight years old when Uldred’s uprising destroys the rest of her small world.  
\----------------

Saski and Wynne stand back to back, ushering the children and injured into the early halls. The doors are barred past the apprentice quarters no matter how Saski throws herself against them, and her furious yelling does nothing. The Templars do not answer. They will not answer. They believe she is beyond their saving. 

A Rage demon trying to follow them falls to Wynne, and then Wynne is holding onto her arm, tired and afraid in her own way. 

Wynne is weak, injured, and the children and apprentices are scared, looking to the only upright mage for help. Looking to Surana. She huddles them close and holds the barrier door, ignores the roaring and screaming inside, and she prays. 

Her eyes close with exhaustion for just a moment, and she hears that unmistakable voice, that furious yell. Through the door and down the stairs, an echo of over a decade, and Saski is awake, pale hands gripping the stone floors and breath coming in shallow gasps. The demons have gotten through. They’ve taken her. She was foolish, she closed her eyes…

“You? You’ve returned to the tower? Why did the Templars let you through, are you here to warn us?” Wynne asks quietly, her own eyes afixed to the point behind Saski, where she can’t bring herself to look, but can’t keep from turning steely eyes, and then...

And then there she is. Corrine Amell, in ragged and dusty blue, brown fingers with nails bitten to ragged stubs wrapped around an unfamiliar staff. And Surana wants it to be a dream, for a moment, but it isn’t, because she would never have dreamed of the rest, of the individuals surrounding her sister. A flustered young man with ruddy cheeks and a soldier’s haircut in pieced together, mismatched plate. A darkly svelte young woman with scraps for clothes and a scowl that would turn a seasoned enchanter to stone, wielding a staff that looked almost as brutally wounding as any sword. A red Chantry sister with robes tucked into roguish chainmail and leather, the bow on her back as worn as something picked out of an Alienage hand-me-down pile. A dog with kaddis paint that's been smudged and ruined past any design. 

And her sister, her Corrine, staring into Saski’s own eyes as if she’d seen a ghost. As if she wasn’t the ghost herself. Neither of them listen to Wynne at all, and perhaps the old woman understands that. 

“Greagoir said everyone had to be dead. That you had to be dead. I didn’t want to believe him, but I…” Corrine starts, unsure, and Saski reaches out a bloodied hand with shaking uncertainty, Corrine’s bruised fingers intertwining immediately as an instinct. 

“Amell?” Calls the Chantry sister, a soft melodic voice, a voice with compassion, and Corrine’s cheeks flush for a bare moment before she turns back, still holding tightly to Saski’s hand. Surana is almost crying. She refuses to let it be a certainty.

“I just…need a moment with my sister, Leliana. Please.” Corrine breathes, an affectionate tone to her voice, and Saski must take in the redhead with more appraisal, hearing Amell’s voice like that. There is a longing there. It’s soft, but Surana knows that tone, and Leliana does not, and for a moment there is a brief slice of heartache. Amell loves these people. Amell has adopted yet more friends-as-family, and Saski must like them, for her sister's sake. 

“Warden, we could simply take the girl with, if this reunion must stretch out any further.” The dark woman, (Morrigan, Corrine whispers into her ear, a Witch of the Wilds) replies drily, casting irritated glances at the stone walls, at the marveling apprentices who have never seen an apostate before. 

“I won’t endanger you by doing this.” Frowns Amell, holding Surana’s fingers so brutally right it feels she may lose them. 

“Wynne and I survived to here. I’m no apprentice anymore, sister.” Saski breathes, and her chin hits hard on Amell’s shoulder, their tangled arms and staffs making for a dreadfully tight and uncomfortable hug. 

Corrine chokes, and Saski can hear the smile. “No, you aren’t. Irving listened to me. I asked him, one last thing, to give you…to let you have the chance. I’m so proud of you, Saski. So proud.” The older mage hiccups with tears, and Surana laughs, clear as bells and sharp as needles. 

“I beat your record, of course. I told you.” 

“I knew you would. I’m sure you and Anders celebrated, he better have treated you nicely-“ And then Corrine’s head snaps up, takes in the small crowd, Wynne, the apprentices, Petra and Kinnon, the children. “Where is Anders? Is he…?” Her head jerks towards the door with fearful eyes.

“He escaped. Right before my Harrowing, I think. I went to find him and he was just. Gone.” Surana admits with a worrying lip, a shamed glance at the floor. “But others. There are others in there. We couldn’t…Wynne and I, we couldn’t get them all, and Uldred…"

“Then we’ll get them. We need to find Irving.”

Corrine is confident as always, direct and strong. There’s so little wavering Saski almost thinks her sister has become stony in the center. Wynne joins them. Morrigan is nearly left behind before Saski pipes up, offers her service to the wild witch. Corrine nearly argues again, before leaving Surana with Morrigan and a delightfully slobbering Mabari. There is no second rogue to offer, but there is Dameron, and the dog is well enough a companion to suit Saski. 

Corrine takes one way through the tower, direct and certain, and Saski takes the darker corners, the forgotten rooms and good hiding places she had always frequented as a child. Corrine finds more demons, but Saski finds more secrets, more things to pilfer away into her robes and observe, borrow notes and books and small paintings, jewelry. It’s Saski who finds the grimoire that makes Morrigan’s eyes go impossibly wild. 

It’s Corrine who sees the Fade once more. Who kills Uldred. Who proves to the Templars that all is well.

It’s Corrine who tells Saski quietly, in the end, about Cullen, his wants, his desires preyed upon, about the both of them. And then it is Corrine who leaves, with Wynne in tow, excused by the First Enchanter himself. Saski is too valuable, as a fresh and formidable mage still standing, he says. Greagoir agrees and demands she stay, but it is Irving who winks at her later in the night as she slips through a crack left in the wall by Pride and freezes a path for herself across Lake Calenhad. 

It’s Saski who walks into her sister’s camp at dawn, finds the dying embers of a fire and an old stewpot and sets to work. 

It’s Saski who finally finds her way home.


End file.
